Stay
by agents-of-ships
Summary: Clint knows he's not good at keeping partners. She seems to think it's only a business relationship. She'll probably end up leaving him like the rest. But he hardly knows her, how can he make her stay?


A/N: Some parts(little things, mostly) are inspired by other fics I've read. And parts also inspired by this quote from the Catching Fire movie-

**Katniss Everdeen: **I've never been very good at friends.

**Peeta Mellark: **Well, for starters it does help when you know the person. I hardly know anything about you except that you're stubborn and good with the bow.

**Katniss Everdeen: **That about sums me up.

**Peeta Mellark: **No, there's more than that, you just don't wanna tell me.

**Katniss Everdeen: **It's like I said, I'm...

**Peeta Mellark: **You see, Katniss, the way the whole friend thing works is you have to tell each other the... the deep stuff.

**Katniss Everdeen: **The deep stuff?

**Peeta Mellark: **Yeah.

**Katniss Everdeen: **Uh-oh, like what?

**Peeta Mellark: **Like uh...what's your favorite color?

**Katniss Everdeen: **Well, now you've stepped over the line.

_[Peeta smiles]_

**Peeta Mellark: **Seriously though, what is it?

**Katniss Everdeen: **Green. What's yours?

**Peeta Mellark: **Orange.

**Katniss Everdeen: **Like Effie's hair?

**Peeta Mellark: **No. Not that orange, more uh...more like a sunset kind of orange.

"Your eyes are green." Clint's been contemplating her for a bit(aka staring at her) and he realizes the color of his new partner's eyes.

"Mm." She responds as she always does, not showing any trace of emotion. It's only been a few weeks anyway, so maybe he shouldn't expect friendliness from her. He doesn't really care if her reactions are friendly, though, he just wants reactions in general. She's typing up the paperwork that he really should be doing himself, but he's lazy. And she seems to want to do everything herself anyway. He shouldn't let her do everything, after all, she's still new. He's experienced in this sort of thing. Partners, though, he's not so experienced in that subject. All his former partners got sick of him, and asked Fury for a new partner. He really didn't want to scare this one off. But she hardly even spoke, and that worried him. He was determined to keep her, though.

"They're pretty," he says, hoping maybe that will get a reaction. She seems to ignore him, and keeps typing on the standard S.H.I.E.L.D. laptop. With a sudden burst of persistence, he presses her laptop shut. She looks at him with furrowed brows. She seems… Well, he's not really sure what to make of it, and he thinks maybe he should've just left her alone. But he can't give up now. "Talk to me," he says, and it sounds more like a command than he wanted it to, all he honestly wants is friendly conversation. He guesses he's just not good at showing what he's really feeling.

"I need to do this paperwork," she says, and she's all business. Maybe that's it, maybe she just sees them as business partners, but wouldn't him sitting next to her on the bench show her that he wants to be more? He doesn't need them to be friends yet, but he wants _something._

"I'm supposed to do the paperwork, anyway. You don't have to do it, y'know? I'm supposed to do this stuff, cause you're new. I can do it later," he says, hoping she'll just say something, anything, that's not business related, for once, because they'll never get to be friends at this rate.

"I can do it," she says, almost as if she's trying to prove something. He sighs in exasperation, because she just won't give in, will she?

"_You don't have to._" He puts as much weight as he can on that statement, because he really should be doing the work himself.

"It doesn't matter. You can sign your name on it, no one needs to know," she says. And he's so _mad _at her, because she won't let him do this, and for some reason, he feels he needs to do this, he has to show her that he can do it, too.

"I'll do it," he says, firmly. He gives her a look of steel, because he needs to show her that she shouldn't do all the work, especially not now. She scoffs, and it hurts him because it feels like she's mocking him, and he really shouldn't have tried to talk to her.

"You don't need to try to be chivalrous, or whatever. I can do it, I don't care," she says.

"I'm not _trying _to be chivalrous. I'm supposed to do this, you're the rookie. If you don't care, then let me do it," he says, angrily, because he's so irritated at her stubbornness.

"_Fine_," she snaps. And for some stupid reason, her snappiness hurts him, although he's angry at her too, and he's sure he's snapping back at her, but it stings. It should be normal, he's used to his partners disliking him, but… He thought she was different.

"I was just trying to lighten the mood. I was _trying_ to be friendly," he says. His voice _sounds_ hurt, or raw or something, and he didn't mean to do that. He's not weak. She pauses, like she always does before she speaks, and he's surprised that he's picking up on her mannerisms already.

"Then you should know that I'm not very good at friends," she says, in her short, clipped tone. And she looks away pointedly, for a pressing moment. Then she reaches for the laptop, to open it again(even though she said she'd let him do it, why was she so confusing?), and Clint feels he's lost. He thought, hoped, that he might get something out of her, but it was all in vain.

"Neither am I," he blurts, trying to hold on to her interest, "I've had many other partners, but they all requested a new partner because they didn't like me. And I tried to be nice and friendly with them, but I guess I'm not good at that sort of thing." She moves her hands away from the laptop, and looks at him. He thinks that's a sign to keep talking, but now he doesn't know what to say. He hastily racks through his brain, he has to find something to say while she's still listening. "What's your favorite color?" he asks, and he mentally shames himself for asking a 3rd grader's friendship question, but he was drawing a blank. She pauses, of course, but when she speaks, it's different somehow, gentler.

"Blue," she says. And, because he's not creative with conversation topics, he pursues the topic already up.

"What kind of blue?"

"Blue like the sky, sometimes, if it's the right kind of day. Blue like the ocean or sea, but only certain places at certain times have the right color," she pauses for a second here, hesitates, before saying: "Blue, like the color of your eyes." He can feel the heat on his cheeks, although he's not sure if he should be blushing, but he's so taken aback that he doesn't know what to say or do. She seems somewhat surprised that she admitted that, so she covers it with another question.

"What's your favorite color?" And for some reason it amuses him, because a typical person would ask 'What's yours?", but she speaks in fuller sentences, and he realizes that he enjoys finding these tidbits about her.

"Purple." He grins at her, and he's sure it looks foolish, but purple is the accents on his suit(he's almost sure she knows that) and it's his signature color. She doesn't smile back, obviously, because she's just not that type of person. But he thinks he sees a corner of her north twitch, almost as if a part of her wants to smile. And it fills him with happiness, which makes him smile even more. He's only known her for three weeks, and at the start it seemed as if she'd ditch him eventually, but maybe, just maybe, she'll stay. S


End file.
